We had an enjoyable meeting chaired by Carlie, who insisted that we sing Happy Birthday in recognition of the Queen’s 90th! It was also lovely to have Pam and Vicki present – both have been working hard and travelling this year.
Our guest speaker tonight was Rev. Peter Daniher, the recently retired former Anglican Bishop for Geelong. He provided us with a thought provoking talk, challenging us to show understanding and compassion for refugees coming to Australia.
He asked us to consider what it would be like to have all your culture and way of life completely destroyed and then arrive in a place where nothing was familiar. He questioned why in Australia, it takes years to process refugees in detention. Peter works with the group Christian Refugee Action Group (CRAG) to support refugees in many ways e.g. assisting with filling in legal forms to accommodation and education. He said that the 2 biggest problems faced by refugees are language and finding meaningful things to do, preferably a job.
Rotaractor Keeley came to our meeting to promote their Mayday Afternoon tea - 2.00pm at Highton Bowls Club. Cost is $5.00 and proceeds go the Give Where You Live. Lindsay recommends this as the ‘culinary event of the year’. Please support them by attending or giving a donation.
Our Aldi BBQ raised $227. Thank you to Bob, Peter and Lynn, David C, Sandy, Graham P, Ray, Ash and Ken for their assistance.
David C reminded us that he has the Entertainment Books should you wish to purchase them and reported that Paul is having a great time in Nepal.
Council on Legislation 2016 – refer to rotary.org for full details of resolutions.
Some of the interesting changes:
Representatives also voted to allow Rotaractors to simultaneously be members of Rotary clubs.
The dues were set at $60 in 2017-18, $64 in 2018-19, and $68 in 2019-20
Qualification for membership: a member will be a person of good character who has a good reputation in their business or community and is willing to serve the community.
Two key measures … give clubs greater flexibility in their meetings and membership. The first measure gives clubs greater leeway in when and how often they meet, how often they cancel meetings, and what constitutes a meeting, as long as they meet at least twice a month. The second measure grants clubs flexibility to experiment with membership models.
Next week, our guest speaker is Ron Stark who will introduce RotaryPlus and there will be a Board meeting to follow.
